Shadow Lost (The Shadow Accords Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  That raised a different question. What of those who had died in the tavern in Lonsyn?

  Was that the reason behind what they’d found there?

  Too many questions. She had no answers, something that frustrated her. How could she make the right move if she had no idea what pieces were moving? Worse, the pieces that moved around her seemed to have more information than she did.

  If not the shadow blessed, the only other option involved Dara. Carth wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to bring the woman with her. The last time she had been involved, she’d jumped to violence and anger. Carth understood now that it was violence that had been deserved, but at the time, Dara hadn’t known that. She’d acted based on assumptions rather than understanding.

  If only Dara were better able to plan and strategize. She had thought by playing Tsatsun with her, she might be able to teach her, but so far Dara hadn’t progressed. It was a game that required patience and foresight, but so far Dara had not demonstrated either of those traits.

  She shook her head. She would give Dara another chance. She had to; Dara possessed the power of the S’al, and that seemed to be something the blood priests were unable to withstand.

  Carth patted Guya on the shoulder and let out a long sigh, pointing to the map. “Make your way towards the Elders Jaw. If what I plan doesn’t work, you’ll need to lose them there.”

  “And what do you plan?”

  “I intend to play a game with Dara.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  She shook her head. “If that doesn’t work, then it will have to be up to me.”

  Guya frowned at her. “This doesn’t always have to come on your shoulders, Carth. You’re powerful, I’ve seen that, but others can work with you.”

  She smiled. “Others do work with me. That’s why I have you.” She nodded towards the shadow-blessed students working on the bow. “That’s why we brought them on board. I don’t intend to do this myself, not once we gain enough assets.”

  “Assets? That’s what they are to you?”

  She sighed again. “Assets. Pieces in a game. Either way, it’s a game I intend to win.”

  17

  Carth sat across from Dara, once more playing a game of Tsatsun. She had made a point of explaining to her the intent of the game, hoping that if she shared with Dara what she intended to accomplish, Dara would understand the importance of maintaining her focus and thinking accordingly. So far, the game had not gone well for her.

  “You move impatiently,” Carth said.

  She held on to the connection to the shadows, delving beneath the sea with them as she stretched her awareness to the north, tracking after the distant blood priest ship. They were still there, distant but growing steadily closer, almost as if they were fully aware of how to find the Goth Spald. Carth had to believe that they might know.

  “Impatient? This is how I was taught to play,” Dara said.

  “Then you were taught wrong. The intent is to move the stone, not destroy the other side.”

  “If you remove the other pieces, you can move the stone more easily,” Dara said.

  Carth motioned to the pile of pieces she had claimed from Dara. “It does, but if you don’t plan well enough, you’ll never get the opportunity to capture the pieces. You have to be able to move well enough before you can start attacking. Then you can make your attempt on the stone.”

  She made a few movements, each of them getting closer and closer to the stone. Each time she did, Dara seemed oblivious to what she attempted. Rather than ending it—which would probably have been a mercy—she played it out, taking more time than was necessary. By the end of the game, Dara had almost no pieces remaining and stared at the board as if trying to understand what she might have missed. There was a time when Carth had had the same reaction, but that had been during the first few games she’d ever played. Since then, she’d gotten more skilled.

  She now understood what Ras had said about not having someone to play with. Winning too easily was worse than losing. At least with losing, she was forced to think through what she’d done wrong and try to come up with a different strategy the next time.

  Carth moved the stone, ending the game.

  “Again,” she said, setting up the board.

  This time had gone better than the last. Dara managed to demonstrate some anticipation. She still played eagerly, and without regard for caution, but she had progressed for the first time ever during their sessions. Carth had made a point of explaining why she made each move, hoping that through her explanations, Dara would be able to anticipate or at least think through what she intended. So far, she hadn’t.

  Even sharing her strategy, Carth still won easily. Had she played someone who had a modicum of skill, she would have struggled, though the idea of announcing her moves amused her. Would she be able to announce them and still win? It might add to the level of difficulty, especially if she described what she would do the next two or three steps ahead.

  Dara slouched in her chair. “I’m terrible.”

  Carth nodded. “You’re not good yet. That’s the point of playing.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to compete at your level.”

  Carth didn’t think that likely either, but telling Dara that would only deflate her even more. Instead, she said, “You need more practice, and you need to recognize where you can move, and where you need to be more cautious. But you did play better this time.”

  “I focused on the stone,” Dara said.

  “I noticed.”

  “You did?”

  “It was the first time I didn’t think you were simply trying to pile up pieces.”

  Carth sat back and looked at the game board. She wished Dara could play with more efficiency and more forethought, but that wasn’t her skill.

  Was there a way to play to Dara’s skill?

  She set the pieces back on the board and began arranging them. As she did, Dara stared at it, focused on the stone. Her face contorted as if she were trying to determine how to move the piece with her mind, rather than coaxing it with the other pieces. They didn’t even need to be strong pieces. Any move would have been enough to convince her.

  “That’s your problem,” Carth said. “You’re so focused on the stone that you forget to play the other pieces.”

  Dara shook her head. “It’s not that I forget to play the pieces, it’s that you told me I needed to focus on the stone to win. Before, I focused on removing the other person’s pieces. That was how I was taught to play.”

  Carth considered her words, thinking about how she could encourage her to play a different strategy. She’d explained looking at the game from another’s perspective, but that hadn’t helped Dara.

  What would she be able to tell her that would help her reach her potential with the game? Dara would never be a master at Tsatsun, but it was possible for her to get better. Carth believed it was possible for anyone to get better, especially with practice and an understanding of strategy.

  “Why don’t you focus on the stone and play with only the Rangers this time?” Carth suggested.

  “Why only the Rangers?”

  Carth started removing pieces from the game board. She removed pieces of hers as well as pieces of Dara’s. When all were gone other than the Rangers, she motioned to the board. “Humor me. Let’s work on these, focus on using only these pieces, and see how well you play the game.”

  Dara made her first move, moving one of the Rangers from the back of the board and taking it at an angle. It was a bold move, one that she was not surprised to see coming from Dara.

  Carth played a tentative game intentionally, wanting to feel out how she would play. She wasn’t sure if Dara would play with more patience than she had before, and was pleased to discover that Dara could focus on the task more easily when she was only moving the single type of piece.

  Maybe the problem for Dara wasn’t so much the complexity of the game but the distractions that could be found wi
thin it.

  It was easy to get caught up in the potential found within the game. Early on, when playing and training with Ras, Carth had discovered ways of holding all the different patterns in her head, but Dara was not Carth, and it was necessary for Carth not to treat her the same way.

  Dara surprised Carth with a move and reached towards the stone, making a move as if to nudge it forward and onto Carth’s side of the board. She let out an excited little yelp.

  Carth smiled, and she let Dara play her pieces a little longer before countering, leaving them in a draw, with their pieces surrounding the stone in the middle of the board. Carth could have defeated her completely, but that would only have taken away a sense of victory. Sometimes believing in victory was enough to help with understanding.

  Carth sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, a half-smile crossing her face. “That was much better. You were able to focus on the task at hand instead of getting distracted by all of the other pieces.”

  “What was the point of removing the other pieces?”

  “The point was focusing your play.”

  “I wasn’t focused before?”

  “Did you win?”

  Dara sighed, eyes still locked on the stone. Carth could tell she was pleased with herself. Hadn’t Carth felt the same way the first time she’d thought she’d beaten Ras?

  “The Rangers… was it all about removing distraction?”

  She understood. That was good. “I’ve told you how Tsatsun will often reveal things about the player. I’ve learned you’re impatient, and that you prefer to attack. I’m the same way. But I’ve learned that you lose focus. There are times when I might need you to be able to accomplish a goal. Other pieces will move around you, and you will need to be able to counter them, and to focus on what you’re asked to do.”

  Dara looked up from the board, her brow furrowed as she made the connection. “And what do you intend to ask me to do?”

  Carth smiled. Dara recognized there was more to this exercise. Maybe she could learn.

  “The blood priests continue to pursue us. I can feel them pressing on my shadow senses. Andin and I were able to press them back last night and gain time, but we weren’t able to stop them. We could continue to push them back and race towards Nyaesh, but I don’t want to bring the children of Isahl to Nyaesh if I don’t have to.”

  “But you would?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Why?”

  Carth sighed. “There’s more to the destruction of Ih-lash than I realized. I thought it was all due to the Hjan but I don’t think that’s all there was. They blame Lashasn for a second attack. What if the blood priests had something to do with it?”

  “Those weren’t blood priests you found in the tavern in Lonsyn.”

  “I’m not sure what they were, but they weren’t your typical tavern people either.” She thought of the man that the green-eyed Hjan had been most focused on. She didn’t know why he had wanted him, but there had to be something about the bodies that had drawn the Hjan. They had risked coming to Lonsyn, risked facing Carth.

  The accords would hold, but what was it they were after? What power did they think to gain?

  “What now?” Dara asked.

  Carth stood. She had seen what she needed to see from Dara. She agreed with Guya that she couldn’t face attacks like this on her own. She had barely survived when it came to the accords, and she hadn’t faced anything quite like these blood priests. She didn’t know enough about them to effectively counter them, which was part of the reason she intended to reach their ship and find out what she could, learn how they played. She had to, if she intended to bring the shadow-blessed youth to safety.

  “Now it’s time for you and I to attack.”

  18

  Carth and Dara sat in the dinghy, perched atop the hard wooden seats, waves roiling around them and slowly pushing them away from Guya and his ship. Carth convinced Andin and Lindy to use their connection to the shadows and hold on to them while they were gone. Carth could trace that back to the Goth Spald. Of course, that depended on them surviving.

  “How far are we?” Dara asked. She was dressed in loose-fitting pants and a well-cut shirt, one that had drawn the attention of Andin as they had jumped onto the dinghy. Dara carried two knives at her waist as well, matching Carth in that way. They were well-forged knives, made of a strange dark silvery metal and branded with a particular mark at the end of the blade. Guya claimed he had found them on the southern continent and stated that there had once been more knives like this, but now they were rare.

  Carth closed her eyes. She could feel the shadows pressing against the ship far in the distance. When she stretched with them the opposite way, towards the south, she was able to feel the growing distance of the Goth Spald.

  Would they reach it again? Would it matter if they didn’t learn about this blood magic? They needed to find out more about these blood priests, something that would help her keep the others safe.

  Through the shadows, Carth was able to contact the presence of the oncoming ship.

  It sliced through the water but, more importantly, it also sliced through her connection to the shadows.

  “Can you reach your connection to the S’al?”

  “I can,” Dara said.

  Carth traced her finger across the ring she wore on her middle finger, the one that she had taken from her mother. Barbs pressed into the flesh of her finger, but she had discovered this connected her more deeply to her shadow power. Through this, she was able to draw upon the flame without the same resistance she’d met when training in Nyaesh. With this, she wondered if she could actually have risen higher with the A’ras. Maybe then she might have felt as if she belonged.

  Carth sat back on the seat of the dinghy. Her eyes lost focus as she paid attention to the sense of the shadows. It was late, and she had chosen this time intentionally, wanting the shadows to protect her as they approached, but now she wondered if daylight might’ve been better. She might not have had the same protection with the shadows, but she would’ve had some advantage with the S’al. That was the key to victory, and Dara and she both had that advantage over the blood priests. Did she lose something by coming at night?

  Both of them worked the oars, using Carth’s connection to the shadows to propel them towards the blood priest’s ship. Neither spoke, but both knew their tasks. Dara understood that when they reached the ship, her task was to sink it, using her connection to the S’al to ignite it.

  Carth didn’t worry about her own safety. She could protect herself from the flame and that the night and the shadows would keep her safe—so long as the blood priests couldn’t dissipate it. Perhaps that was reason enough for them to come in the night, so that she could use the shadows, so that she could have that advantage over them.

  Nearly an hour passed before she could see the ship in the distance.

  Carth shifted her focus with the shadows, now drawing them around the dinghy, using them to cloak the small vessel. They continued to row, and Carth used the shadows to propel them forward, closer and closer to the other ship.

  Dara leaned close to her and whispered, “If they know the Goth Spald is to the south, does it make sense for us to come from this direction?”

  Carth smiled. Dara was actually using strategy. Perhaps she could learn. “I intend for them to know that we’re coming.”

  “Won’t that only draw their attack?”

  Carth nodded. “I need to know what they are capable of. Right now, I have no idea, other than that they have brute strength and they’re hard to kill.”

  Dara rubbed her arms and shivered. “This really is like a game of Tsatsun to you, isn’t it?”

  “Everything is a game,” Carth said.

  The dinghy slowly parted the water, gradually approaching the larger ship. Carth could feel increasing agitation against the shadows, as if the blood priests became more aware of her presence. Would they know that Dara came as well?

  Sh
e had to test them. There was one way to do that well enough for her to think they would respond.

  She pulled upon the shadows, drawing them around her in a thick fog of a cloak. With the shadows, she was able to feel the way the blood priests worked against her magic, the same way that it worked when they sailed through it. It was a brutal sort of power, one she felt practically pulsing against her.

  This was nothing like fighting the Hjan.

  At least with the Hjan, she knew what she was facing, knew that they could flicker and disappear. With these blood priests, she was ignorant. It was time that changed.

  “Stay down,” she said to Dara. She didn’t want the other woman discovered by the blood priests yet. She would rather have them think that she was alone. That gave them an advantage of surprise, an extra piece that she could move against them.

  Dara dropped into the bow of the boat, and Carth pulled upon the shadows, using them to conceal Dara. They drifted forward, propelled by her magic.

  The ship slipped through the waves, cutting through them with more strength than Carth would have expected. Was there something about the ship itself?

  It was too dark to know, but she could imagine them painting it with blood, much like the sails had seemed painted. It crashed through the sea, as if powered by something other than the wind.

  As they neared, she parted the shadows to look up at the tall deck of the ship. High above her, she noted at least three men standing on the bow of a ship, men who looked nothing like the Reshian. There was something about them that tugged on familiarity, though she wasn’t certain why.

  This close, she could make out details she couldn’t from farther away. Each of them wore long dark robes that reminded her more of the men in the tavern than those from the ship attack. These men had a more refined appearance, with long, elegant features, and they had eyes that were a flat gray, almost a steel. Their skin was pale, almost sallow and saggy in appearance that looked as if they had never seen the sun. Hands that gripped the railing were stained maroon.